Bitcoin News Summary – July 23, 2018

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Here’s what happened this week in Bitcoin in 99 seconds.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $6.3 trillion under management, announced on Monday that it’s considering Bitcoin for investment purposes. The firm’s CEO, Larry Fink, said that BlackRock is putting together a team to study cryptocurrencies.

Coinbase apparently received regulatory approval from US market regulators, the SEC and FINRA, to acquire three companies. These firms would allow Coinbase to list security tokens, such as ICOs. However, Coinbase walked back the announcement, stating that regulators have not given the official go-ahead.

SBI Holdings, a Japanese bank, has opened the world’s first crypto exchange to be backed by a bank. The new VCtrade exchange will feature Bitcoin, Ripple, and BCH trading for Japanese Yen.

The CEO of $24 billion hedge fund, Citadel, said during a CNBC interview that he doesn’t see the point of Bitcoin and considers it a waste of time. Challenging this view was Avenue Capital Group’s CEO, billionaire Marc Lasry, who told CNBC he expects Bitcoin to hit a price level of $40,000. Lasry stated that he holds roughly 1% of his wealth in Bitcoin.

South Korean tech giant Samsung has begun accepting crypto payments in several Baltic nations via the CoPay platform. Customers in select parts of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will be able to buy Samsung phones and appliances online and pay using Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and a few other altcoins.